Thanks to the efforts of our founding fathers, there have been safeguards in place for the past 200 years to protect the civil liberties of the citizens of the United States from unreasonable search and seizure. These safeguards were put into place to restrict the federal government’s ability to spy on the unknowing citizens of the country, especially when it comes to those on American soil.
After 9/11, the safeguards went under consideration when government officials argued that the walls set up between local law enforcement officials and international spies had caused the government to miss out on the clues that could have led them to prevent the infamous attack in New York City.
Congress was persuaded by government officials to remove some of the barriers, as well as, create a director of national intelligence that was able to override any and all agencies of intelligence in order to look for clues of pending attacks.
During the 2004 debate, civil libertarians warned that making moves such as this would put too much power into the hands of certain government officials. It would only take one poor decision in the executive branch of government to make the country’s worst dreams come true.
When former President Barack Obama was nearing the end of his presidency, high-level officials with access to an unbelievable amount of information about American citizens began spying on domestic political opponents. At least one of those cases ended with a political opponent’s identity being exposed in order to punish him publicly.
Just two months after he took office, President Trump tweeted: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism.”
Of course, the media was more concerned with mocking President Trump for misspelling the word “tap.” Conclusive evidence that Obama tapped Trump’s phone was never found, but after years of investigation, President Trump is able to feel vindicated with his concern that Obama did indeed use American resources to spy on Trump.
During an interview in the Oval Office last week, President Trump said: “This is something that should never be allowed to happen to another president.” President Trump also said that intelligence officials from the Obama administration, including ex-CIA Director John O. Brennan, have a few things that they need to explain. “Bad guy, by the way. Be interesting to see where he was at the beginning of this whole thing — you know, how it all started,” said President Trump.
James B. Comey, the FBI-director in charge during Obama’s administration, is also being looked into for presenting President Trump with disproved accusations in the Steele Dossier, which was funded by the Democrats to find dirt against Trump. “Comey was a poor man’s J. Edgar Hoover,” said Trump in reference to the corrupt FBI director who illegally obtained dirt on politicians in order to hold power over them.
“What he did with that report, I think, was to sort of gain influence over the president of the United States. I don’t think that there has ever been a time — whether its politics of not — like the corruption we’ve uncovered. Hopefully, that’s going to be pursued — by reporters, also,” said the president.
